Technology is prevalent in our daily lives. In this day and age, it is next to impossible to go through a day without using or being impacted by technology in some way. One area in which this is especially true is with respect to the way we communicate. Most people carry some form of wireless device with them throughout much or all of the day. Popular devices include smartphones, tablets, netbooks, notebooks and other products that allow users to communicate with others wherever they may be so long as they are in range of a long range or local wireless network or a wired network to which they have access.
These devices are used for personal and business purposes and, among other things, they provide the capability for users to communicate by transmitting and receiving information in the form of either or both of voice and/or data. In the case of data, communications may take the form of emails, texts, SMS, and other formats as well as various attachments and other content that may be included in the communication. For example, emails may be accompanied by various attachments which are communicated along with the email message such as documents, pictures, spreadsheets, presentations, music files, recorded messages, links to web pages, etc.
While all of the above provide conveniences and accessibility as people move about through their daily lives which were heretofore unavailable prior to these technological developments, there do exist concerns and drawbacks associated with these capabilities. One key concern is that of parents and others concerned about children's access to inappropriate content in various forms. Because many children have access to these mobile devices as well as other equipment located in homes and schools, and because these children often communicate with each other using these devices and equipment, there is the risk that some of the content shared between and among these children is inappropriate or otherwise undesirable.
There exist many tools available for mobile devices as well as other computing platforms, such as desktop computers, which allow parents, teachers and other responsible adults to control access to content in various contexts. Many of these tools are software based and reside on the receiving device. These tools typically run continuously and monitor content so as to prevent content otherwise available on the device or equipment from being accessed by all users or some subset of users. Various designated categories and characteristics for content can be specified for censoring while content not meeting these categories and characteristics is permitted to be accessed, viewed, and/or used as applicable.
By way of example, as a general matter, all television sets manufactured for the United States market starting in 2000 are required to have a “V-chip”. This device allows for parental control of broadcast content which is viewable by children based upon ratings category. Users which have the password (such as parents) can override the protection as desired and view content which would not be viewable to those without the password (such as children).
In the context of computing devices, various types of filtering applications are also known. These again typically take the form of software applications residing on the applicable device. Alternatively, filtering can be accomplished via network infrastructure such as proxy servers. Filters can be implemented in various manners such as those that are browser based, email filters which act on information contained in the mail body and headers, and client side filters which are implemented as software on the computing device which can be managed by those with administrative level privileges.
While the aforementioned collection of filtering and content control solutions are effective and provide the desired result in many contexts, there does not yet exist a safe, reliable, robust and effective means for controlling content prior to the transmission of the content particularly with respect to content which is to be transmitted by a mobile device. It is advantageous for content to be controlled at the source device rather than the destination device for a number of reasons.
For example, merely having inappropriate or illegal content on a device can be problematic regardless of whether it can be accessed by unauthorized users or not. In the case of child pornography, for example, the mere fact that such content is resident on a device can have severe legal ramifications regardless of whether or not there are content controls with respect to the access to or use of such content by a subset of users. This also applies to other information and content where it is a significant advantage never to receive such content at all as opposed to receiving such content or information but limiting access to it on the destination device.
One practical example is a child who habitually transmits inappropriate content to other children who are otherwise innocent and do not desire to receive such content. While it is possible to censor such content on each of the receiving devices to which the content is transmitted, it is even more effective to stop that content at its source such that it never reaches innocent users or others that would prefer not to receive the content at all.